Caribbean Islands
Please note, this page is not longer being updated. For more recent information, please see news.mongabay.com and use the search function to find the country feed. For more up-to-date data on forest cover and loss, check out Global Forest Watch.
At one time the islands of the Caribbean were covered with tropical rainforest, but these have been diminished since the arrival of Columbus in 1492. Originally, hardwood was used to construct ships, homes, and furniture for the early colonists, and the rest of the forest was reaped of fuelwood and then burned for plantations. Today, very few of these islands have any forest cover, let alone primary forest. With forest loss, species have disappeared, including 35 mammals species. Some of the island nations recognize the importance of forest cover and have moved to protect the remaining forests or have begun reforestation programs.
In the Bahamas, the Bahamas National Trust has reseeded original hardwoods in Exuma National Park. In addition, the trust is restoring species that were near extinction or have gone extinct in the wild. Islanders have noticed that rain levels are returning to levels measured before original deforestation. The government of the Bahamas is working to promote eco-tourism that will bring in foreign currency and investment, yet protect the environment at the same time.
A small section (28,000 acres) of rainforest exists in Puerto Rico's El Yunque National Park which contains more than 200 species of plants and the endangered Puerto Rican parrot. The park was established in 1876 (the oldest reserve in the Western Hemisphere) by Spain, who controlled the island at the time. In the 1930s, with the island now a territory of the United States, the Civilian Conservation Corps built a road that divided the forest in half.
Cuba's natural forests are very rare. The island was more than 90 percent forested in 1492, but by 1900 forest cover had fallen to 5 percent. Since 1960, when the forest cover stood at 13.5 percent, forest area has been increasing due to reforestation. The dry conditions of 1998 resulted in forest fires. Rare species are threatened by collection for export.
In the late 1920s forest still covered three-quarters of the Dominican Republic, though by 1981 this had been reduced to roughly 14 percent from clearing for sugar cane, residential development, and logging for timber. The Dominican Republic is one of ten forested nations that proposed compensation from wealthy countries for rainforest conservation at the 2005 climate conference in Montreal.
Country / Area | Total Forest Area (ha) | Percent Forest Cover | Primary Forest Cover (ha) | Total Change 1990-2005 (ha) | Total Change 1990-2005 (%) | |||||
| Anguilla | 6,000 | 58.8% | 0 | - | 0.00% | |||||
| Antigua and Barbuda | 9,000 | 20.5% | 0 | - | 0.00% | |||||
| Aruba | 0 | 0.0% | 0 | - | - | |||||
| Bahamas | 515,000 | 51.5% | 0 | - | 0.00% | |||||
| Barbados | 2,000 | 4.7% | 0 | - | 0.00% | |||||
| Bermuda | 1,000 | 20.0% | 0 | - | 0.00% | |||||
| British Virgin Islands | 4,000 | 26.7% | 0 | - | 0.00% | |||||
| Cayman Islands | 12,000 | 45.8% | 0 | - | 0.00% | |||||
| Cuba | 2,713,000 | 24.7% | 0 | 655,000 | 31.83% | |||||
| Dominica | 46,000 | 61.3% | 27,000 | -4,000 | -8.00% | |||||
| Dominican Republic | 1,376,000 | 28.4% | 0 | - | 0.00% | |||||
| Grenada | 4,000 | 11.8% | 1,000 | - | 0.00% | |||||
| Guadeloupe | 80,000 | 47.3% | 19,000 | -4,000 | -4.76% | |||||
| Haiti | 105,000 | 3.8% | 0 | -11,000 | -9.48% | |||||
| Jamaica | 339,000 | 31.3% | 0 | -6,000 | -1.74% | |||||
| Martinique | 46,000 | 43.4% | 0 | - | 0.00% | |||||
| Montserrat | 4,000 | 40.0% | 0 | - | 0.00% | |||||
| Netherlands Antilles | 1,000 | 1.3% | 0 | - | 0.00% | |||||
| Puerto Rico | 408,000 | 46.0% | 11,000 | 4,000 | 0.99% | |||||
| Saint Kitts and Nevis | 5,000 | 13.9% | 0 | - | 0.00% | |||||
| Saint Lucia | 17,000 | 27.9% | 0 | - | 0.00% | |||||
| Saint Vincent and the Grenadines | 11,000 | 28.2% | 0 | 2,000 | 22.22% | |||||
| Trinidad and Tobago | 226,000 | 44.1% | 14,000 | -9,000 | -3.83% | |||||
| Turks and Caicos Islands | 34,000 | 79.1% | 0 | - | 0.00% | |||||
| United States Virgin Islands | 10,000 | 29.4% | 0 | -2,000 | -16.67% | |||||
| Total Caribbean | 5,974,000 | 26.1% | 624,000 | 11.66% |
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Suggested reading - Books
- Fodor's Caribbean 2006
- Guide to Marine Life: Caribbean-Bahamas-Florida
- Fishes of the Atlantic Coast: Canada to Brazil, Including the Gulf of Mexico, Florida, Bermuda, the Bahamas, and the Caribbean : 408 Fishes in Full
- Frommer's Caribbean 2006
- Lonely Planet Caribbean Islands
Unless otherwise specified, this article was written by Rhett A. Butler [Bibliographic citation for this page]
Other resources
Contact me if you have suggestions on other rainforest-related environmental sites and resources for this country.
Image copyright Google Earth, MDA EarthSet, DigitalGlobe 2005
Last updated: 7 Feb 2006